CNA Staff, Jan 26, 2021 / 09:30 am (CNA).- Chaldean Catholics in Iraq are undertaking a three-day “Nineveh fast” this week to pray for peace and security in their country ahead of Pope Francis’ scheduled visit in March.
Cardinal Loui… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 24, 2021 / 06:01 am (CNA).- A group of Christian leaders who advocate for the Holy Land this week reiterated a call for Israeli and Palestinian authorities to negotiate directly for the sake of peace in the region. They also encouraged Israel to make COVID-19 vaccines accessible to Palestinians.
The Holy Land Coordination group, which was founded by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, is comprised of bishops from the U.S. and Europe, as well as a bishop of the Church of England. Since 2000, the group has taken an annual trip to the Holy Land, and promotes awareness, action, and prayer for the region.
During the bishops’ January 2020 trip, they visited Christians in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and Ramallah. The bishops met virtually in January 2021 with Christians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel.
Due to the pandemic, this year is the first since the group’s founding that the bishops have not been able to meet in the Holy Land.
“The Christian community, though small, is an important guarantor of social cohesion and a bearer of hope for a better future. We eagerly await a time when Christians from across the world can once again make pilgrimages to the Holy Land to witness and support this first-hand. Until that point, we encourage our communities to provide any assistance that may be possible and hold all the region’s peoples in our prayers,” the group wrote in a Jan. 22 communiqué.
The delegation included Bishop David Malloy of Rockford, chairman of the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace.
The delegation noted that the absence of pilgrims to the Holy Land in the past year has exacerbated unemployment and poverty.
The bishops concluded that these factors, along with continuing political conflict, culminate to mean, “there is today less cause for optimism than at any time in recent history.”
Security borders have impaired Palestinians’ ability to work and travel, including travel to Muslim and Christian holy places, while Jewish settlements in the West Bank are a continuing source of tension.
Israel suspended the annexation of some parts of the West Bank during August 2020 as part of its normalization of relations with the United Arab Emirates, but tensions remain.
“The lack of political progress, along with relentless expansion of illegal settlements and the impact of Israel’s Nation-State law, continues to erode any prospect of a peaceful two-state solution,” the bishops wrote.
The “nation-state law” refers to a 2018 measure which defined Israel as the “historic homeland of the Jewish people” who have “a singular right to national self-determination within it.” The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has criticized the law as discriminatory against Israel’s Christians.
The bishops also encouraged Israel to make COVID-19 vaccines accessible for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has one of the highest per-capita rates of COVID-19 vaccination in the world, but until this week was not allowing vaccines into Gaza or the West Bank.
The Vatican recognized the state of Palestine during May 2015. During May 2020, the Holy See reaffirmed its support of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, and respect for the borders internationally recognized before 1967.
In a July 2020 statement, released in response to possible Israeli action to annex Palestinian territories, the Holy See reiterated that Israel and the State of Palestine “have the right to exist and to live in peace and security, within internationally recognized borders.”
Then-US president Donald Trump and Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2020 proposed a two-state peace plan for Israel and Palestine, which included an independent Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.
Trump insisted that Jerusalem would also remain “Israel’s undivided— very important— undivided capital.” The United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2017.
Under the plan, none of Jerusalem’s Old City or territory within the current security wall would be ceded to the Palestinian state. The agreement also preserves the status quo policy regarding control of various religious sites, including the site of the Temple Mount and Al Aqsa Mosque, and, under the proposal, Muslims would still have access to the site.
Trump’s proposal for peace called for the creation of a Palestinian state, but gave Israel sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank. The Palestinians reject this.
Palestinian leaders, the United Nations, and European and Arab countries oppose unilateral action from Israel and consider Israeli settlements on land captured in 1967 to be illegal, Reuters reports. Israelis who back annexation cite biblical, historical, and political roots in the West Bank territory.
The plan also proposes the construction of a “West Bank-Gaza Tunnel” to connect the two halves of Palestine, and that a third of the Gaza Strip be designated as a “high-tech manufacturing industrial zone.”
As part of the plan, Trump also pledged money to the Palestinian state for job creation and poverty reduction. Trump said that if Abbas and the Palestinian Authority “choose the path to peace,” that the United States and other countries “will be there, we will be there to help you in so many different ways.”
Newly-inaugurated President Joe Biden is likely to reverse some of Trump’s policies in the Middle East, pledging as a candidate to restore humanitarian aid to Palestinians and opposing Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, NPR reports.
CNA Staff, Jan 21, 2021 / 04:54 pm (CNA).- A Catholic priest in Burkina Faso who went missing Tuesday has been found dead in a forest, the local bishop announced Thursday.
“It is with deep sorrow that I bring to everyone’s attention that the lifeless body of Fr. Rodrigue Sanon was found on January 21, 2021 in the protected forest of Toumousseni, about 20 kilometres from Banfora,” Bishop Lucas Kalfa Sanou said in a statement, according to ACI Africa.
He called for prayers and said more information would be available at a later time.
“By the Mercy of God, may the soul of his servant Rodrigue Sanon rest in peace!” the bishop said.
Fr. Sanon, a priest of Notre Dame de Soubaganyedougou, disappeared Tuesday on his way to Banfora to meet with Bishop Sanou. The priest never arrived, and his car was found abandoned.
Over the last five years, Burkina Faso has been a hub for religious violence and Islamist militias, especially in the northeastern territories. The militants include the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, and Ansarul Islam.
According to a 2019 report from the U.S. State Department, 61% of Burkina Faso residents identify as Muslim and 23% identify as Christian.
The extremist attacks, which target both Christians and Muslims, have left over 1 million people displaced and almost 1,100 dead since 2015.
The bishops in Burkina Faso issued a statement in June, calling the situation “more worrying than ever.” They raised concerns about the increase in religious violence and called for more support from the authorities.
“The role of the Defense and Security Forces remains paramount,” said the bishops, adding that security forces in the country “must produce and guarantee a secure environment conducive to the conduct of the electoral process with the full participation of all citizens.”
In the June statement, the bishops said they are worried that the low levels of security are preventing priests from reaching their parishioners and asked the Blessed Mother to intercede for their efforts.
“For the Pastors in this part of Burkina Faso as elsewhere in the regions … it is a great suffering to no longer be able to reach the faithful in some places, or to see them fleeing from terrorist attacks without any guarantee of security,” they said.
“May Mary, Queen of Peace, accompany us on the path to true peace, a gift of God and the fruit of human efforts.”
Adigrat, Ethiopia, Jan 20, 2021 / 05:34 pm (CNA).- At least 750 people are reported dead after an attack on an Oriental Orthodox church in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, according to a European watchgroup.
On Jan. 9, the Europe External Programme wit… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 20, 2021 / 04:20 pm (CNA).- A Catholic bishop in Burkina Faso is asking for prayers after the disappearance of another priest, whose vehicle was found abandoned earlier this week.
Father Rodrigue Sanon, a priest of Notre Dame de Soubaga… […]
Monze, Zambia, Jan 14, 2021 / 12:31 pm (CNA).- Bishop Moses Hamungole of Zambia’s Monze Diocese died Wednesday of COVID-19-related complications. He was 53.
The bishop had been receiving care at the Lusaka-based Levy Mwanawasa Hospital. He teste… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 14, 2021 / 06:00 am (CNA).- A cardinal has called on Iraqi Catholics to pray at Sunday Masses that Pope Francis will be able to visit their country in March.
Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, issued… […]
Rome Newsroom, Jan 13, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- More information has been released about the papal visit to Iraq, as Pope Francis expressed doubt this week about whether the trip would take place as planned in March.
In a television interview on Sunday… […]
Rome Newsroom, Jan 10, 2021 / 03:52 pm (CNA).- For the first time in over 54 years, the Franciscan friars of the Custody of the Holy Land were able to offer Mass on their property at the site of Christ’s baptism, located in the West Bank.
The Ma… […]
Bangassou, Central African Republic, Jan 5, 2021 / 02:56 pm (CNA).- The Central African Republic city of Bangassou has been captured by rebels aligned with an ex-president, Bishop Juan José Aguirre Muñoz of Bangassou has reported as he ap… […]
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